


Of Elves and Men

by itstonedme



Series: Bardolas series [2]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 09:35:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1105244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itstonedme/pseuds/itstonedme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sequel to <i>The Bowman and The Prince</i>.  For Stormatdusk and Aliensouldream who had asked at one time that there be more Bardolas.  First posted on LJ <a href="http://itstonedme.livejournal.com/92281.html">here</a>.</p><p>Non-canonical.  Feedback always appreciated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Elves and Men

**Author's Note:**

> Nienna was a queen of the Valar and the Lady of Mercy.

 

The people of Laketown who had survived Smaug's devastation were a resilient race. From the depths of loss rose a spirit of fellowship. What they suffered in the defeat of their will was masked by the measures they took to rebuild what had once been. Not one of them, regardless of age or sex, lay down to sleep each night without having earned their rest through back-breaking toil. Like ants, they formed a human chain of industry and renewed the town. They cleared the woodlots far to the northwest, using the Forest River to float the large timbers down to the lake. In time, a new Laketown rose from the ashes, one bright with the smell of freshly planed wood and rebounding with the echoes of children's laughter. 

Whatever foulness lingered within the town fled from either fear or greed. No lamentation followed the flight of the Master of Laketown when he stole away with Dain's gold. His departure only served to liberate those who remained. It became something understood that the people should turn to Bard for leadership. His birth, his valor, his quiet wisdom determined that he should be the one to draw their weary lot together.

"I did not seek this," Bard told Legolas late one evening as they stood beneath the new overhang of his salvaged home, watching candlelights flicker to life in the homes across the boardwalk.

"Fortune seeks its own," Legolas replied, "for good or ill. And in you, my friend, it has found good."

"Elvish flattery," Bard smiled. "Your tongue is as silver as your hair."

Legolas looked down and fingered a flowing lock. "Moonlight," he said in feigned seriousness. "I believe it would be considered the colour of moonlight."

Bard neither looked his way nor made a sound as he poked him sharply with his elbow.

*

For Legolas, there was no denying Bard's children. 

When he took up his quiver and bow early one morning and slipped from their home, they silently slipped out the door behind him, trailing his path by twenty paces, not a word passing amongst them. A hundred yards on, Legolas glanced over one shoulder without breaking stride. "I go to hunt," he said. "Are you sure you wish to see that?"

He could have said that he was off to tie a knot or cut his nails, for the children would not have been discouraged. During the time that he had come to stay with them, their infatuation with him had only ripened. A Sindar prince – a warrior! – abiding within their home! They had taken to emulating his every movement whenever they were alone, and in many ways, they strove to mimic all aspects of his being. 

They walked on as the sun broke over the Lonely Mountain, chasing their shadows from the earth. Often, the children needed to hurry their steps to keep apace, for the elf strode with purpose. Behind them, the town and the sounds of hammers and driven pilings faded away and the vast plains opened around them, its tall grasses rustling in the faint breeze. The morning was quiet, devoid of bird song. All that could be heard were the children's leather slippers scuffing stones along the pebbled pathway. 

As for the elf, his footfalls met the earth in silence. 

Presently, Legolas stopped, and the children halted behind him, watchful, breaths held. In a single fluid motion, he reached behind and gripped a flight in his quiver, extracting the arrow to notch it as he raised his bow. Pivoting towards the empty plain, bow string drawn and arrow at his shoulder, he aimed into the tall grasses and let fly before he stepped off the path, parting the blades before him as he made his way. Cautiously, the children followed.

They found him bent forward to retrieve his arrow, plucking it from the earth. Shot through and impaled upon the shaft was a fat hare, its heart pierced by the clean strike. Legolas pulled the arrow free and gripping the animal by its heels, he turned towards the children. "Who wishes to carry it?" he asked.

Without hesitation, Bard's son Bain replied, "I will."

Legolas stepped forward and handed the hare to the boy, but his gaze was on the youngest, a girl of eight years, with eyes large and solemn. "Do not be sad," he told her kindly. "The buck did not suffer. "

"How did you know he was there?" she asked with awe.

"I heard him," Legolas smiled. "Just as I am hearing the hawk."

The children looked at each other, listening intently, but all they could hear was the wind. "Where?" the oldest girl asked. "I can't see or hear it."

"There." Legolas pointed towards the Grey Mountains to the north. But the clear sky was empty of even a cloud. "A red-tail," Legolas said. "Hunting for its dinner, just as we are."

Moments passed before the eldest girl pointed to the sky. "There!" she said excitedly. She turned to Legolas. "How did you know?" 

"I heard his cry," Legolas replied, replacing the arrow in his quiver. "Just as I heard the hare's heartbeat."

The children stared at him in silence.

"Can you hear my heartbeat?" the youngest child whispered.

"Always," Legolas smiled. "Strong and brave it is too."

*

That evening, Bard stood once more upon his walkway, back against the wall of his home, a knife and wooden dowel in his hand upon which he was carving the shape of a doll. Beside him, Legolas squatted, surveying the town.

"Did the children know their mother? Legolas asked. 

"The oldest two have vague recollections, but they are fading. The youngest one, not at all."

Legolas was quiet. His mother was as equal a mystery to him, leaving no memory, only an emptiness. 

"It will ever be a sadness for me," Bard continued quietly, "that they did not know how much she loved them. When the time came for her to leave us, it pained her deeply, for she knew they would not remember her."

"How was it she came to die?"

Several curls of wood joined the others collecting upon Bard's boots. "It was an illness borne of the water," he sighed heavily. "It was not quick. She suffered sorely."

Legolas watched the crimson reflections of the setting sun transform upon the water lapping the boardwalk. "Had you ever thought to take another wife?"

"There was never the desire," Bard replied.

"But for the needs of the children?"

Bard smiled down as the elf gazed across the water. "There was never the desire."

*

Bard and Legolas had ranged far from the lakeshore in search of plants with which to replenish the town's store of curatives that the fire had consumed. Their quest took them into a thicket that had been left untouched when the plains had been cleared many ages before, for it was there they might find athelas and snakeroot, yavannamirë seeds and scores of other medicines much needed. A cloth bag was slung over Bard's shoulder, and he bent at his work, scraping soil from roots with his knife and slicing through them, taking only that which was needed so as not to damage the mother plant. "Are you able to use your elvish magic to espy any athelas?" he called out to Legolas, who had foraged deeper into the glade because the kingsfoil was the most elusive in their search. 

The elf was already stepping blithely atop the downed tree trunks back to where the bowman worked, thick bundles of the fine leaves in each hand. "Do you need more?" he asked smugly.

Bard raised one brow and took the cuttings to wrap them tightly in cloth and twine so that they might be carried back in sheaves. "I might no longer need my pig to sniff out truffles, such are your skills," he remarked glibly. 

He had only stood upright after tying the last bundle before Legolas knocked him back against the vast trunk of a towering oak, one hand on his chest and the other above his shoulder to block his escape. The elf's mouth slammed down onto Bard's, knocking the bowman's head against the rough bark. As quickly as the kiss had begun, it ended as Legolas stepped back, fists at his side, glare fixed on the bowman. Bard staggered to gain his balance.

"I am sorry if I cut your lip," Legolas said.

Bard looked at the fingers he had drawn from his mouth, a light pink staining them. "You would kiss an elvish lass like that?" he asked in disbelief.

"You are not a lass, neither elvish nor elsewise."

"Aye, we are agreed on that."

"Forgive me if I misunderstood," Legolas said. "I had sensed an affection towards me that you had not shown to others. An attraction, a quickening of the blood."

Bard frowned as they watched each other. "And you had not been wrong, Legolas," he finally said. "However, keeping my teeth firmly fixed in my head overshadows that attraction. Like my affection, I do not give them up lightly."

Legolas smiled softly. "Might I be given another chance?"

Bard grabbed the thick branch jutting out not far above his head. "First let me brace myself."

Legolas stepped forward as Bard aligned his back to the tree. But this time, as his head tilted and his lips fit over Bard's, the kiss was filled with great tenderness. Both sought to mold their mouths to each other in the sweetest of ways – lightly, pliantly, tongues sliding with matched fervency. Legolas lifted his hand to entrap Bard's where it clasped the branch and brought his other to cup his head, and Bard, for his part, slipped his free arm around the elf's waist so that their hips might meet each other. 

_"Nienna,"_ Bard exhaled as Legolas lifted his lips and kissed him beneath the corner where jaw met ear, and he could feel the elf's lips curl into a smile upon his skin. 

Legolas dropped silently to his knees between where Bard had planted his feet, hands an elegant dance as they lifted aside the rough homespun of Bard's tunic and unlaced his breeches. Bard looked down at the braided gossamer head framed with ivory knife handles and razor arrows, the elf's gaze intent upon its purpose, and he tightened his grip on the branch above and breathed heavily. Legolas briefly looked up at him, a flash of blue that teased with humour and promise and danger, everything that Bard wanted at that moment more than anything the world could offer him. 

"You think truffles are all that I can sniff out, bowman?" Legolas said, his voice low as he withdrew Bard's firmness, and he descended upon it with his mouth.

The back of Bard's head met the oak for the second time that day, only this time with far greater pleasure and urgency, and he gasped as Legolas' hands came up and pinned his hips to the trunk.

He came in short measure, hard and violently, his cries accompanied by the isolated call of a lone woodland songbird somewhere nearby. He leaned against the tree, panting, his gaze upon the forest as he felt his member returned to its place and his lacings refastened. 

Presently, Legolas stood into view, and their eyes met. The elf wiped the back of his hand across his lips and said nothing, watchful as Bard strove to regain his breath. Bard raised his hand feebly, seeking to touch him, fingers grazing the edge of the wrapped belt, but Legolas escaped him with a backward step and smiled. He turned on his heel and leapt onto the moss-cloaked log crossing his path before alighting on its far side, set on his way.

"Wait!" Bard called out in a cracked voice.

But there was no hesitation as Legolas continued away from him.

"By all the Valar, Legolas, stop!" Bard cried out, his voice husky and spent. "What of you?"

But the elf only smiled to himself without turning, one hand raised in parting. And bending to pass beneath an overhanging bough, he disappeared into the trees.


End file.
